Quite often a seating unit within a home will be accompanied by a footstool, such as an ottoman or hassock. Footstools are, of course, generally placed in front of the seating unit and thereby provide a surface upon which occupants of the seating unit can rest their feet.
Footstools can additionally serve as storage receptacles for articles such as books, magazines, cards and games, writing instruments, sewing materials, beverages, and the like. See e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 2,812,227 to Hill; U.S. Pat. No. D160,390 to Hubbert. The typical storing ottoman has a removable top that, upon removal, exposes a storage receptacle within the vertical walls of the ottoman. The cover may be completely detachable or may be pivotally interconnected to the top of one of the vertical walls. See Hubbert, supra. Of these, the pivotally interconnected cover is generally preferred for the convenience it affords. The pivotal interconnection of the cover to the base precludes the need to the operator to locate an appropriate spot to store the cover when it is removed or to search for the cover when it is to be replaced.
Despite its clear advantages, an ottoman with a pivotally attached cover does have shortcomings inherent in its basic configuration, each of which is safety-related. When the cover of such ottoman is opened, it pivots from a generally horizontal disposition atop the base walls through an upright disposition directly above the base wall about which it pivots, then continues to a fully open position in which it is disposed at an angle between the upright position directly above the base wall and an inverted horizontal disposition adjacent and external to the base. The disposition of the cover is governed by the presence of a motion halting structure, such as a chain, that may be attached to the ottoman, or by the configuration of the cover cushion itself. For comfort, most ottomans have a relatively thick cover cushion that bulges somewhat from the peripheral edges of the cover. As the cover reaches the fully opened position, the bulging portion of the cushion contacts the base wall and thus prevents the cover from reaching or even approaching the inverted horizontal position. The typical cover opens fully to an angle of approximately 30 degrees relative to horizontal. In this configuration, the cover of the ottoman is typically between 6 and 10 inches from the underlying floor. As a result, the ottoman can be quite unstable and thus is prone to tipping; this can be particularly problematic if the ottoman is in a location where children or pets may be tempted to pull on or hang from the open cover.
The second related problem concerns the ease of returning the cover to the closed position. Once the cover is moved from the fully open position past the upright position above the base wall, the center of gravity of the cover is positioned over some portion of the footprint of the base. As the pivot is located on a base wall, positioning the center of gravity within the base footprint causes the weight of the cover to assist the closing of the cover. This leads to a tendency for the cover to slam shut into the closed position, which again can be problematic in the presence of children or pets. Also, operators who are weak or infirm may also risk injury due to slamming. This problem is exacerbated by the inability of the cover to reach a fully inverted horizontal position, as it takes relatively little force to raise the cover from the open position past the upright position to an orientation in which the cover is prone to slamming.
In view of the foregoing, it is a first object of the present invention to provide an ottoman with improved stability when the top cover is in the open position.
It is a second object of the present invention to provide an ottoman with a reduced tendency to slam forcefully into the closed position.
It is a third object of the present invention to provide a mechanism suitable for use in such an ottoman.